User blog:GGooeytoe/Annwn, Master of the Wild Hunt
Annwn, the Master of the Wild Hunt is a champion in League of Legends. Always surrounded by his pack of , Annwn is versatile champion who can function as a mage, physical or hybrid fighter, or as a physical or hybrid DPS champion. He thrives in the jungle, where his give him exceptionally easy clears, permitting him to repeatedly gank lanes with his surprising mobility, or take advantage of his sustain to invade the enemy jungler. However, Annwn is equally at home in any of the three lanes of Summoner's Rift. In top lane, his ability to attack at range and potent sustained damage (physical OR hybrid) allow him to bully the tanks and fighters he will face, while providing his team with crowd control and damage in team fights. In the middle lane, he functions a lot like ; he is strong in drawn out fights, where his ever escalating damage will shred through his foes, but in skilled hands can offer surprising amounts of burst damage. Finally, Annwn can be built as a powerful sustained autoattack champion who deals massive physical damage--in effect, an ADC. Abilities s to fight for him. When he declares an attack, he summons a which mirrors his movement and attack commands. He can summon another Hound 3 seconds later. The delay before summoning another hound is NOT affected by cooldown reduction. Hounds last for 12 seconds or until slain. There is no hard limit to the number of on the field at a time. Hounds apply both on-hit and on-attack effects, as well as ignore unit collision, but do 60% reduced damage from item, buff, and ability effects. Spellblade is special cased: the first Hound to attack after he receives the Spellblade proc will apply its full damage. }} Master of the Hunt is what gives Annwn his identity. I actually built his kit around this one idea...which (confession time) I stole from Aeon of Storms' Garamond Singsprocket. Still, what this innate does is bring something truly unique to LoL: an actual pet champion. Sure, there are troll builds like AD Malzahar, plus champions like Annie and Zyra who spam pets everywhere, but let's be honest, these pets are more in the way of bonuses than central to the champ's identity. Annie would still be Annie if her instant 3 man stun didn't spawn a giant bear afterwards. Malzahar would still be really annoying in lane without his Voidlings, and Zyra...well, she'd be different, but you see my point. Now to the actual discussion of this skill (and before you read this, you'll need to check out the numbers on the Hounds, which are down in the pets section. Sorry...): The Hounds are really what let his builds be so versatile. The key is that, since his sustained damage scales REALLY well with AP, AS, CDR, AD, Crit, AND on-hit effects, he can build pretty much any items and still do lots of damage, given enough time. The Hounds should feel pretty intuitive to control: When you attack move to a point, any active Hounds will attack move to the same point. When you issue a move command, any active Hounds follow that move command too. Thus, if he wants to AA someone, he needs to be in an attack target or attack move command, but he can still kite around like a normal champion. Note that he behaves as a ranged champion, since he can only summon Hounds at a range of 525 units from his target, but the Hounds behave as melee units. If you build him like an ADC, after 6 seconds of focused attacking, his autoattack DPS will be greater than Jinx's. Assuming no items, at level 18, Jinx with fully stacked minigun has an attack speed of 1.6061 and 104 AD. Annwn has an attack speed of 1.075 and 132 AD. So Jinx has 167 dps. With one Hound, Annwn has 56.76. 2 Hounds=113.52. 3 Hounds gives him 170.28 DPS...and he goes all the way up to 227.04 DPS (requiring 12 seconds of ramp up time). Obviously, numbers may need to be adjusted a bit (probably base AD and AD growth stat, possibly attack speed), but the point is clear. Also, since his Hounds apply 40% of the damage of on-hit effects, once he gets 3 hounds out, he benefits more from on-hit damage than any other champ in the game. So a fighter oriented build that picks up, say Rageblade+Nashor's gives him plenty of sustained damage, while letting him build 4 defensive items. And obviously, he could go insane with Sated Devourer if he jungles (more on that later. I need some advice regarding fixing his jungling). Annwn hurls his spear towards target point, dealing magic damage to all enemies it passes through. The spear lingers in the ground at the end of its path for 2 seconds, and Annwn may reactivate Huntmaster's Spear to blink to the spear. |leveling = |cooldown = |cost = 100 |costtype = mana |range = |targeting=Ground-targeted linear pass-through skillshot |additional=One of the things I tried to keep in mind while designing his basic abilities was that I wanted them to offer something DIFFERENT to each of the three (AD, AP, hybrid/on-hit) build paths open to Annwn. It's simple, but enables so much. It offers the most to his mage path--it's poke, waveclear, an escape, and it enables his burst combo, as well as containing a large chunk of that combo's damage. For the fighters (which isn't necessarily hybrid), it's an engage, as well as a way out if they push too hard in lane. In particular, it lets jungle Annwn's gank effectively, by getting them in range for the cc and damage followups. Finally, for the ADCs/sustained damage builds (either AP or hybrid) it offers mobility to the VERY squishy hypercarry. }} Annwn’s autoattacks deal additional magic damage equal to a percentage of the target’s missing health to targets below 50% health. |description2 = Annwn marks a target enemy champion or neutral monster as Prey, gaining vision of the target and Cull the Weak’s passive effect against them, regardless of remaining health. If the target’s health drops below 50% while marked, the next instance of damage against them forces the target to flee for 1.5 seconds. |leveling = |leveling2= |cooldown = |cost = 60 |costtype = mana |range = 600 |targeting=Passive self-buff with a targeted debuff active |additional=this is my least favorite skill in Annwn's kit. It fits thematically, and it fills in some potential gaps in his various builds, but it may simply overload his kit. The sustained damage dealers, especially the AP ones, benefit a lot from this skill, as it's a free BOTRK that does magic damage. The active fear component is important to his jungling, as it gives him a cc train to make up for his limited burst out of the jungle. It also helps his burst AP builds--the active fear makes sure he can finish off the comboed target, while the on-hit damage lets him do significant sustained damage once he's blown his combo. This is a good place to talk about his two AP builds, actually. You can build him like Azir, with a Nashor's Tooth at the expense of raw AP. His teamfight damage is still pretty huge--not AOE like Azir's, but after 9 seconds of constant autoattacking, he deals 80% of his AP as physical damage and 24% as magic damage on each autoattack. He also has 1.325 attack speed at level 18 with Nashor's, so he does 104% AP damage per second (mostly physical). Azir with the same build (and 3 soldiers on 1 target) has 90% AP as magic damage, with an attack speed of 1.409, for 126% AP damage per second, but Annwn has better burst. Alternatively, build him as an assassiny-mage (maximize AP), because he can Q through his target then use the blink to cancel the animation on his E for 130% AP damage and 1 second of super hard cc. If he channeled his ult before going in, the Dire Hounds immediately walk up for 30% more AP, plus 10% for every Hound that was active. Assuming the QE combo drops the target below 50% health, Annwn can fear them while the Hounds finish the job. This is why I don't really like his W, though. If it was an AP burst tool, his burst combo would be better, and he'd have less cc (chaining 2.5 seconds of hard cc on a champ with as much damage as this guy is probably too much). }} for 1 second. |leveling = |cooldown = |cost = 140 |costtype = mana |range = |targeting= collision skillshot |additional=Stag (lame name, need a better one), along with Q, enables the burst mage and jungler builds, while making him more relevant as a fighter (he has decent damage as a fighter, but he's not super tanky so he needs to bring decent cc). It also helps keep the hypercarry DPS builds safe (same idea as Jinx traps and Tristana Ult). However, the short range on it helps keep it from being oppressive. Unless you are a team-diving fighter, you can't really use it for anything except self-peel (especially with the cast time). }} which survive until slain or the Hunt ends. Dire Hounds have increased statistics and longer attack range than Hunting Hounds. Their first and every third attack thereafter against a single target the target for .5 seconds. An enemy who has been slowed by one Hound may not be slowed by a different Hound for 1 second. If an enemy champion damaged by Annwn during the Hunt dies, Annwn summons an additional Dire Hound. |leveling = |leveling2= |cooldown = |cost = 100 |costtype = mana |range = 650 |targeting= Wild Hunt is an auto-targeted buff that debuffs enemies damaged by Annwn during its duration. |spellshield= present on a champion at a damage instance from Annwn will block debuff application, preventing generation of additional Dire Hounds. Also blocks the slow effect. |additional=His basic abilities are generally most useful to the AP builds, but the ult is intended to give a little something to his ADC style, as well as help out his ganking. The free Hounds lets him ramp up his damage a heck of a lot faster in teamfights than he would otherwise if he goes ADC, and the slow effects (which are special cased so that you can't really apply slows any faster than if you only had 1 Dire Hound) help him kite. Of course, the jungler will benefit a lot from the sustained cc and ability to ignore unit collision. Also, avoiding ramp up time will help him execute ganks before the victim escapes or help arrives. Finally, the ability to enslave the souls of his victims is just plain cool (and in keeping with the mythology of the Wild Hunt). It might be unnecessary, but I don't think his ult is "ultimately powerful" enough without it, so there. }} Pets , they will attack Annwn's target in place of Annwn if they are in range. Unlike , if they are NOT in range, they will move to get into range. **Hounds ignore unit collision and cannot be collided with. **Annwn will also move to enter his attack range of the target, so that he can continue to summon Hunting Hounds. **Because Annwn cannot attack except through his melee Hounds, his attacks benefit from melee only items such as and not from ranged items such as . * Basic attacks apply on-hit effects and count as auto-attacks made by Annwn for the purposes of on-attack effects. *''Hounds'' do only 40% of the damage that item, neutral, or ability effects would normally cause them to do. **This means, for example, that if Annwn has , one attack from a single Hound actually deals physical damage and 6 + magic damage. If Cull the Weak is in effect, the Hound deals only an additional . **Because of the power of spellblade effects, they are special-cased so that the first Hound to attack after he activates spellblade applies the full damage and consumes the buff. * Classified as a pet for targeting purposes. |health= |damage= |damagetype=Physical |range=175 |armor= |mr= |attackspeed= |movespeed= |gold=15 gold |exp=0 exp }} summoned through Master of the Hunt. ***Hounds ignore unit collision and cannot be collided with **Basic attacks apply on-hit effects and count as auto-attacks made by Annwn for the purposes of on-attack effects. **''Dire Hounds'' do only 40% of the damage that item effects or neutral/allied buffs would cause them to do. *The first attack of a particular Dire Hound against a specific champion, and every third attack of that Hound thereafter, the target. *A champion who has been slowed receives a buff unique to the Hound that applied the slow for 1 second. This buff prevents any Hound except the one that applied the buff from slowing the champion. *An individual Hound cannot apply a slow more often than once every 1.2 seconds (the time required to attack 3 times at max attack speed). * Classified as a pet for targeting purposes. |health= |damage= |damagetype=Physical |range=200 |armor= |mr= |attackspeed= |movespeed= |gold=25 gold |exp=0 exp }} Final Thoughts: His numbers are probably way too high, at least in the autoattack department. The other MAJOR kit problem I see is the weird W (I think I should replace it with some kind of AP burst tool, maybe one that offers utility to the non-AP builds..ideas?). There is, however, a FUNDAMENTAL design problem...how does his ability to summon endless swarms of pets interact with tower/minion/jungle monster aggro? If his pets pull jg aggro, he won't take ANY damage while farming his jungle, but that's the standard behavior right now, I think--jungle monsters attack the nearest targetable opponent. I guess Annwn's pets would just need to be special cased. But towers specifically prioritize pets; with enough CDR and HP, he could potentially tank a tower permanently with just his passive. Maybe go the Zyra route and make towers one shot his Hounds? It seems like having distractions should be a strength of pet champions, so unless it's really necessary, making towers one-shot the Hounds should be avoided, I think. After all, Elise gets to Spiderling tank.... When I set out on designing this champion, my goal was to create a pet champion. I quickly realized that the pets gave him an excellent diversity of build options and aimed to make him extremely flexible as well. Did I succeed in creating a pet champion AND a viable hybrid champion (not hybrid like Ezreal, who goes full AD or full AP, but hybrid in that he can go AD, AP, or some of both)? Thanks for reading this super long post :). Changelog: 8/12/15: Clarification of Hound Control scheme. Nerf to max Hounds, removal of CDR mechanic from passive and Q. Increased Hound AP ratio to compensate for CDR loss. Changed Hounds to scale with bonus HP only. Updated dps calculations to reflect changes. Removed level scaling MS from Hounds in exchange for pegging their MS to his (as discussed in comments). Fixed attack range (ty Poisonshark for noticing this). GGooeytoe (talk) 01:59, August 7, 2015 (UTC) Category:Custom champions